A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s2.171

v1.c8.s2.171

The most famous of these Vedic ballads or Saṃvāda hymns is Ṛv. X. 95. This is a poem of 18 stanzas, consisting of a dialogue between Purūravas and Urvaśī. Purūravas is a mortal, Urvaśī a nymph (Apsaras). During four years the divine beauty lived on earth as the wife of Purūravas, until by him she became pregnant, when she vanished, "like the first of the dawns." He went out to seek her. At last he found her, playing with other water-nymphs, in a lake. That is about all we can glean from the obscure, often quite unintelligible verses, from the dialogues between the deserted one and the goddess who is romping about in the pond with her playmates. Fortunately this ancient myth of the love of a mortal king for a divine maiden is also preserved in other portions of Indian literature, and thus we can, to a certain extent, complete the poem of the Ṛgveda. The legend of Purūravas and Urvaśī is already told us in a Brāhmaṇa,¹ and the verses of the Ṛgveda are woven into the narrative. We are there told that the nymph, when she consented to become the wife of Purūravas, stipulated three conditions, one of which was that she might never see him naked. The Gandharvas—demi-gods of the same kingdom to which the Apsaras belong—wanted to get Urvaśī back. Therefore, in the night, they stole two little lambs which she loved like children, and which were tied to her bed. As Urvaśī complained bitterly that she was robbed as though no man were near, Purūravas jumped up—“naked as he was, for it seemed to him that the putting on of a garment would take too long” —to pursue the thieves. But at the same instant the Gandharvas caused a flash of lightning to appear, so that it became as light as day, and Urvaśī perceived the king naked. She then vanished; and when Purūravas returned, she was gone. Mad with grief, the king wandered about the country, until one day he came to a pond, in which nymphs in the form of swans, were swimming about. This gives rise to the dialogue which we find in the Ṛgveda. and which is reproduced with explanatory additions in the Brāhmaṇa.¹ Yet all the pleadings of Purūravas that she might return to him are in vain. Even when, in despair, he talked of self-destruction—he wanted to throw himself from the rocks as a prey to the fierce wolves—she only replied: